


Book of Genesis

by scoradh



Category: House M.D.
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-17
Updated: 2014-03-17
Packaged: 2018-01-16 02:08:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1327948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scoradh/pseuds/scoradh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes it’s not what you do for yourself, it’s what you let other people do for you.</p><p>Written in July 2007.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Book of Genesis

It was a Tuesday when House realised that he was in love with Wilson - that he had been, in fact, for years. Probably ever since the time when they were interns and the SHO had asked a hungover-to-the-gills James if he _knew any drugs at all_ and James said, _no, but I sure could do with some,_ and charmed a scrip for ibuprofen out of her. Then, House had wanted to be him so much it hurt. Now, he just wanted him, and that hurt worse.  
  
The significance of it being a Tuesday didn't escape House. The name of the day wasn't the important part. Days bled into each other at Princeton Plainsboro; moreso when House didn't leave his office for several of them at a time, and then only because Cameron delicately suggested that he might like to freshen up a little. But the date of this particular Tuesday marked the three month anniversary of Wilson leaving.  
  
The rational part of House’s brain knew that tacking on ‘leaving _him_ ’ was neither true nor fair. But House hadn't become the doctor he was because he relied on rationality and other people's facts. He'd always combined instinct and a natural flair for the craft of diagnosis to produce a winning formula, one that left prudent and painstaking clinicans in the dust. The general hatred of humanity had just been an added bonus, one that allowed him to weigh up the facts without becoming clouded with emotion. House left emotions and other bugbears to Cameron, who would one day be a superb paediatrican and a nervous wreck before she was forty.  
  
The unadorned truth of the matter was that Wilson had been offered a supremely valuable consultancy in Mount Sinai. For a man who had at least two more divorces to get through, the generous salary was a considerable incentive. At least that was what House assumed, what his gut told him. He didn't know for certain because he'd refused to discuss the matter with James, right up until he left, and then it was too late.  
  
That Tuesday afternoon, russet light filtered into the exam room where House was carrying out his tedious clinic duties. It splashed over his hands as he ausculated the abdomen of a little boy suffering from severe diarrhoea. House had already ruled out coeliac in favour of a diagnosis of over-protective motheritis. This one actually had an actual handkerchief, and was actually wringing it in her hands while the kid giggled blithely and tried to eat House's stethoscope.  
  
"No snacking on the medical equipment," said House. "It's moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips."  
  
On a whim he pulled out an EM to examine the stool for trophoziotes - it wasn't like the people in the queue were going to get any sicker, and if they did they were in the right place for it. He got more than he bargained for when he found a four-centimetre _Ascaris lumbricoides_ wrapped neatly around the stool, like a ribbon on a present. It wasn't the longest House had ever seen, but the one he retrieved from the kid's ear was definitely a contender for the record books.  
  
It was as he was yanking the thing out of the kid's auricular tube - the mother had long since fainted - that House thought _Wouldn't James just love this?_ Every med school lecturer had their pet urban legend; Wilson would be tickled pink that Microbio Matt had been on the money for once.  
  
The feeling, of wanting to call Wilson up right that moment and tell him the stupid story about a worm, was too close to the way he'd once rung Stacey at four am to tell her he loved her eyebrows. House's deductive reasoning oustripped his survival mechanism by half a second, and then he was concluding that he loved James. Loved him with a greeting card, suicide pact, _why didn't you call_ , Cameron will win the first bet of her life, I'd kiss you with morning breath kind of love, a love he'd only felt once before in his life. And look how well that had turned out - left him down a wife and a leg. House couldn't afford to lose many more limbs.  
  
He banged his way out of the exam room, leaving behind two patients, an unfilled prescription and half-an-hour's worth of damage control for Cuddy. He hadn't thought further than getting to his desk and his new toy, a ball on a string that could hit the glass partition and bounce back without him even getting up. But Foreman was in the conference room with something that looked suspiciously like a chart, so House mouthed, "Gotta make a call." And then he had to.  
  
His fingers weaved into the telephone cord as he automatically punched out a number with his pen. He shouldn't have been surprised that he'd called James' cell, given how he’d just realized James was the only person he ever wanted to call, but it still felt absurdly like the last betrayal.  
  
"Doctor Wilson here, how may I help you?"  
  
The voice was clipped, efficient - everything James wasn't.  
  
"Has New York leeched all the humanity out of you yet?" asked House. "I'll be pissed if it has. I've been trying for years, so don't tell me that smelly metropolis kicked my ass."  
  
There was a silence. House tugged on the phone cord, and it crackled.  
  
"House."  
  
"I live in one, and it's also my name. Way to conserve syntactic energy."  
  
"So how've you been?" And there was Wilson: easy-going, vaguely amused, and _not House's_. He was going to tolerate this phone-call because they were friends who might see each other five times during the rest of their lives. House couldn't bear it. He hung up.  
  
As soon as the receiver hit the cradle, Foreman pounced. House didn't get back to his desk for a full twelve hours. Despite saving the lives of two people, whose stupidity made it a dubious honour, House's customary headrush of epinephrine was delayed until he saw the Post-It on his monitor. It was strategically positioned under the shortcut link to 'hotbikechicks.com' and written in Cameron's surprisingly severe hand. _Mahomet_ , it read, and _Dr Wilson, 6:20 pm._  
  
House crumpled up the note and threw it in the bin. Then he vindictively searched the web for every malpractice suit the Mount Sinai oncogenic department had ever had and littered his desk with printouts. As he was leaving he fished the Post-It out of the trash and, later, hid it in his piano.  
  
It was another month exactly before he called again. This time he was prepared for his own weakness and had chosen to go home and drink himself stupid beforehand. Vicoden and Jack were never a good combination, especially when he was trying to play maudlin Mozart (although maudlin was a superfluous adjective when it came to Mozart) concertos one-handed and dial a number he could recall better than the sheet-music he'd owned for twenty years.  
  
"What's big and green and looks good in a negligee?" he slurred before he was even sure the call had been answered.  
  
"I don't know, House." There was hesitancy in Wilson's voice that had to be wide as a gulf for House to spot it in his current state. "What is big and green and looks good in a negligee?"  
  
"D'no." House skimmed his hand over the keys, abandoning Mozart in favour of a scale. That he'd been trying to play D major and came out with F sharp minor he put down to inebriation. "Why d'you think I called you?"  
  
"You called me to ask me about green things in negligees?" said Wilson. "Because I'm such an expert on the subject, I take it?"  
  
"No," said House, urgently, "why d'you think I called you?"  
  
There was a long silence, and House only realised later that he'd been playing his knee. This time it was Wilson who hung up.  
  
The next morning House packed most of his clothes into a holdall and hid it under his desk. The showers in the locker rooms had better power than his anyway. He tried and failed to get into a case of mainlined tequila, a hidden drug addiction, an allergy to opium and most antibiotics sieved through with undiagnosed diverticulitis. He decided he was allowed one day of dejection, if not utter misery. But the day quickly turned into a week, and Cuddy's funny looks held a suspicious tint of pity.  
  
He pulled a thirty-hour shift out of his ass to forestall any probing into his 'feelings' and decided a permanent L-shaped spine later was a fair trade for sleep in his deskchair now. The edges of his vision always got grey and hummed when he'd been awake too long, and he wasn't getting any younger. He knew he was dreaming when he saw James sitting in the recliner; he only hoped it wouldn't give way too soon to the one about the man-eating carrots.  
  
The sun was too bright when he woke. Sometimes House wished he didn't know so much about human physiology, and could actually believe waking up too soon plus open blinds equalled burned corneas. He managed to rummage out some dextran eyedrops without overturning his entire desk drawer, and was just tipping back his head when James walked through the door, bagels in one hand and a Styrofoam tray of coffee cups in the other.  
  
House yelped in surprise and also pain, as he jabbed himself in the eye with the nozzle. He ground the heel of his hand into his streaming eye and glared at Wilson.   
  
"Don't be such a baby," said Wilson calmly.   
  
"Did I say anything?"  
  
"You don't have to. Here." Wilson tossed a poppyseed bagel with cream cheese in his direction. House caught it with his free hand - all those hours of training with his ball on a string had come in handy.   
  
"I can't eat this, I'm on a diet."  
  
"Why?"   
  
Wilson's honestly appraising gaze took House by surprise, and what was more rendered him speechless. House felt his heart do a thump-thump thing he thought belonged in Disney movies or very dire ECGs. He took a reluctant bite of the bagel, chewing messily on purpose so James would stop _looking_ at him like that.  
  
"I knew there was a reason God invented cream cheese," said Wilson, and God, was he _smirking_?  
  
House put down the bagel. James stood up, walked over, planted his palms flat on the desk. House rebelliously picked up the bagel again and stuffed most of it in his mouth. Poppyseeds went up his nose.  
  
"You know, the first time I thought you were hot half your face was covered in someone else's intestines," said James. "You really think kissing with your mouth full is going to put me off?"  
  
"I'm not -" House started, but didn't finish, because he was.  
  
The fact that James kept his hands firmly on the desk as he kissed House was suddenly the sexiest thing ever. House fought to swallow, breathe, while James relentlessly licked the smears of cream cheese and House's lips, shirt seams straining as he curved over the desk and pushed his tongue into House's mouth. House was struggling to keep afloat, to process all the sensory information, but he was overloading because James _nuzzled_ and now he was kissing House's neck, inhaling his skin, and _God_ if House wasn't going to come right there -  
  
House stared up with glassy eyes as James rubbed his thumb over House's cheek. It was an oddly possessive gesture. "There, that's the last of it."  
  
"Huh?"  
  
James laughed. "Finally, I've found the sure-fire way to shut you up."  
  
"Oh, you think so?" said House.  
  
James leaned forward again, ghosting his lips over House's. House shuddered, his eyes closing and his mouth opening in perfect sync. But James merely teased him with a flicker of tongue before drawing back.  
  
"Yes," he said, "I think so." He moved away, heading for the tray of coffee, turning the moment prosaic. He'd cracked House open like a nut, left him bare and wanting, and for some insane reason House was _happy_. His career would probably suffer. But he wanted to crystallise this: the crack in his armour, the place named James.  
  
"Hey," he said, so James turned around, and "Mountain," so James smiled, like there was nothing else left in the world to see. 


End file.
